The sister of a 33-year-old “lovable guy” and aspiring fitness trainer stabbed to death during a Harlem bodega brawl over the weekend issued a desperate plea for his callous attackers to “reveal yourselves” to police.
Jarvey Barfield was knifed six times when a clash with about four still-at-large ruffians turned violent at 8th Avenue Food Convenience near the corner of Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 142nd Street around 5:30 a.m. Saturday, police said.
The melee began inside the deli, according to cops, but video obtained by The Post shows the violence unfolding just outside the business – first on the sidewalk and then ending in the street just off the curb.
The bleeding victim fled and collapsed about a block away, police sources said. By the time police arrived, he was unconscious.
Barfield – who lived about a half-mile away from the scene in Hamilton Heights – was then rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries, police said.
Police were still investigating Monday what sparked the deadly melee, as family members of the victims tried to wrap their heads around what occurred.
“My brother was a lovable guy,” said Barfield’s sister, Crystal Richardson, 40. “I don’t know why this happened, what happened. I just know he got into a scuffle with some people. They jumped him. They stabbed him. But he didn’t die from his stab wounds. He died from multiple blows to the head.”
Richardson looked down and wiped her eyes when she spoke about the moment she heard the news of her brother’s death – which she said she thought “couldn’t have been true.”
“When I got to the hospital, they had me wait,” Richardson said. “They were asking me to identify his tattoos. When they asked that, I knew where they were going with it.”
Barfield spent just under a year in state prison on attempted assault charges before he was released in 2023, online records show.
But he has avoided any problems since, his sister said.
“He didn’t have beefs. He had just come home from jail. He was only out for, what, three years?” Richardson said. “He wasn’t in no trouble at all. He wanted to turn his life around. Our mom is gone, so it was just me and him.”
The siblings’ other brother, Shannon Bates, was murdered in the Bronx in 2007 over a love triangle dispute, the grieving sister said.
Barfield was “good with music” and “very handy,” his sister said.
“He worked out – he always wanted to be a fitness trainer,” Richardson added. “Everybody loved him. He was huge, very built and tall, but a huge teddy bear.”
She said her brother regularly called to see how she was doing.
“I spoke to him at 8:30 Thursday evening, and he explained to me that he was on the East Side, chilling with his friends, that he was going to come home, but he wasn’t sure when,” Richardson said. “He was like, ‘Sis, where are you? Are you home?’ I go, ‘I’m not home yet, bro.’ He said, ‘Alright, I was just checking in on you to make sure you were all right.’ That’s what we always did. We always checked in on each other.”
No arrests had been made in the fatal attack by Monday afternoon, and Richardson said cops showed her a couple of pictures of the crew they’re looking to question.
“I’ve seen them around. I don’t know who they are, but I’ve seen them around,” she said.
She implored the suspects to turn themselves in.
“You took somebody’s life, you should accept the consequences of that,” she said. “Step up and reveal yourself. You killed my brother.”
